CLARIFICATIONS AND CORRECTION APPENDED

In one of the most contentious votes of the semester, the Undergraduate Council voted 15-13 in favor of initiating a capital fundraising campaign to purchase the multi-million dollar 45 Mount Auburn St. property.

Emotions flew high during the debate and after the final vote on the legislation, with a number of prominent Executive Board members arguing for and against the measure for more than 2.5 hours.

A visibly discomposed UC President Andrea R. Flores ’10, who had previously made statements in Council meetings against the bill, left the meeting soon after the legislation was passed and UC Vice President Kia J. McLeod ’10 broke publicly with Flores in support of the bill.

McLeod was close to tears during debate, and after the vote she ran to embrace Tamar Holoshitz ’10, Student Affairs Committee chair and co-sponsor of the legislation.

“So much energy has been put into bashing this legislation. That really pisses me off. This is a platform that we ran on,” McLeod said during debate.

Flores, who does not have a vote on the Council except in the event of a tie, did not participate in the debate in her capacity as chair of general meetings.

“I think this legislation will be influenced by our final allocation,” Flores said during an interview after the meeting, in reference to the Financial Committee’s final grant package that was also passed in last night’s meeting. “We have to see after next week how viable the proposal still is.” [SEE CORRECTION BELOW]

In an April interview, Flores also voiced concerns that the campaign would be too costly in the current economic climate and would “distract” from the UC’s other responsibilities, including grant-giving and advocacy.

The legislation called for “surplus” or “private funds” to be devoted to hiring four students who would be responsible for a summer capital fundraising campaign for the Mt. Auburn St. property. An anonymous private donor has pledged $4000 that will go towards funding the summer campaign staff, according to Joshua J. Nuni ’10, a Cabot House UC representative.

Nuni, who introduced the bill to the Council in last night’s meeting, gave a Power Point presentation on the subject that seemed to allay some concerns about potential safety and liability issues for the Council.

In the debate that followed, at least two Council members, Quincy House representative Mallika Khandelwal ’11 and Dunster House representative Mohindra Rupram ’10 changed their votes from against the bill to for it.

A provision in the legislation allows the Council to roll over any raised money into a general social space fund if it ultimately decides not to purchase the property. But even this provision was not enough to quell the dissent of some of the meeting’s attendees.

“If we don’t have more physical space, improvements to the existing social spaces are not going to improve our lives that much,” Lam said. “I’d much rather see that money and effort spent elsewhere.” [SEE CLARIFICATION BELOW]

Even after the legislation was passed, tensions remained high at the meeting.

“It is taking everything I have not to walk out of this meeting right now,” said UC Parliamentarian Eric N. Hysen ’11 during the debate on the UC Reform Act of 2009 which followed the vote on social spaces. Flores left the meeting to “get some air,” leaving Sarafa and later UC Secretary Doug Lloyd ’09 to oversee the remaining business on the agenda. [SEE CLARIFICATION BELOW]

—Staff writer Brittany M. Llewellyn can be reached at bllewell@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Eric P. Newcomer can be reached at newcomer@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION AND CLARIFICATIONS

The May 4 News article "UC Meeting Ends in Contentious Vote on Social Space" incorrectly referred to a UC committee as the Financial Committee. In fact, it's the Finance Committee.

Due to an editing error, the article also attributed one quotation to "Lam." The quote should have been attributed to Eva Z. Lam '10, president of the Harvard College Democrats.

Also due to an editing error, the article did not mention the full name and title of former UC Vice President Randall S. Sarafa '09, who was referred to in the article only as "Sarafa."